The present invention relates to a virtual tape system for emulating input/output to/from a magnetic tape volume to a medium replacing a magnetic tape such as a magnetic disk by using a computer device such as a main frame.
Conventionally, as is disclosed in JP-A-2004-227448, identification of a virtual tape volume is performed by a volume serial number (volume name in the aforementioned document). Since the volume serial number of the virtual tape volume is unique in the system, it is possible to judge whether the volume specified by a job is a virtual tape volume, so that the system can automatically select a virtual tape volume and make it to an I/O-enabled state (hereinafter, called “mount”). Moreover, since the virtual tape volume can be automatically mounted in the system, there is no need of grouping the virtual tape volumes to reduce the operation of the operator.